Total number of comments: 121 (since 2010-09-18 12:39:47)
Boycott Israel on Campus
Showing comments 121 - 101
Page: 2 1
Showing comments 121 - 101
Page: 2 1
-
-
- And we live on… 0
- US official — we went to Israel first 0
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status … 22
- Israel takes 30 dunams of land near Salfit ‘for security … 4
- Aaron David Miller: After a short ‘peace process,’ look … 38
- Rafah march for deteriorating hunger strikers as family appeals for … 0
- Rafah’s nicest tunnel: Siege meets surf in Gaza 7
- Iranian talks fail after neocon ‘blitz’ — as Obama dispatches … 28
-
- BDS victory: South Africa strips Ahava’s ‘made in Israel’ label 713
- Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from … 475
- Day after pogroms, Likud MK calls for internment camp for … 427
- Neverending Nakba: Israel breaks lull, attacks Gazan farmers 413
- ‘This is not fair play’: Mahmoud Sarsak’s family demands his … 389
- March of the Flags 345
- Neocons in Washington Post: Military strike on Iran would ‘calm … 323
- Nabi Saleh’s Bassem Tamimi convicted by Israeli courts based on … 293
-
- The Messiah’s Donkey: Settlers fire on Palestinian villagers as the … 235
- Aharon Appelfeld’s rage at the German language (and Arendt’s need … 156
- US to differentiate between ‘personally displaced’ Palestinian refugees and their … 129
- March of the Flags 127
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism 110
- Feeling the hate in Long Island 97
- Israeli judge to issue verdict in Rachel Corrie case 94
- WaPo’s Walter Pincus says US is ‘going above and beyond … 87
-
Recent Comments
click link to see last 100 comments- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status for millions (22)
- traintosiberia: Spain has been allowing ( under pressure) any descendants of the victims of inquisition to settle in...
- Blake: Boy, history won’t be kind on you reprobates. I doubt anybody can be as despicable to you though as you...
- Talkback: Fredblogs: “Frankly if an odd sentence in a cherry picked report, and some obfuscating change of...
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism (110)
- Shmuel: You’re right, Hostage. The point I was trying to make was that even the illegal and immoral excuse that...
- Talkback: “The Arab and Muslim armies have marched on Israel on multiple occasions, …” When? Israel...
- Hostage: P.S. a bit of clarification, that should read: “both practices are violations of the same prohibition...
- US to differentiate between ‘personally displaced’ Palestinian refugees and their descendants (129)
- talknic: Fredblogs May 25, 2012 at 7:24 pm “For thousands of years, and even since then for anyone who isn’t...
- Aaron David Miller: After a short ‘peace process,’ look for war with Iran in 2013 (38)
- Rafah’s nicest tunnel: Siege meets surf in Gaza (7)
- Blake: Good comment Avi but I should have entered his whole quote in my comment to put it into perspective:...
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status for millions (22)
Our Writers
- Philip Weiss
- Adam Horowitz
- Allison Deger
- Annie Robbins
- Kate
- Alex Kane
- Today in Palestine
- Eleanor Kilroy
Blogroll
Don't forget the total divestment resolution that the Wayne State University Student Council approved:
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
It demanded total divestment against Israel.
Aim high.
Divestment at U.Mass.:
link to bdsmovement.net
--Hopefully much stronger resolutions, to clearly divest from Israel, are coming.
And so the newly elected Vice-President of the University of Michigan student government agrees that we must divest from socially irresponsible companies.
See today's Arab American News ,
at: link to arabamericannews.com
"The issue of divesting from companies that provide military support to Israel and other companies deemed unethical was brought before student government this past year and has ignited discussions on campus and editorials in the Daily.
"Hashwi said that he will strive to be a true representative of the student body while making all decisions, and that he will also not be afraid to express his own opinions.
" 'I believe the university must not invest in socially irresponsible and immoral companies and if the students agree with this logic, then that is what I am committed to advocating for.' "
The Methodist church will not be alone in divestment.
The newly elected Vice-President of the University of Michigan student government also says that the university must not invest in socially irresponsible companies.
See today's Arab American News ,
at: link to arabamericannews.com
"The issue of divesting from companies that provide military support to Israel and other companies deemed unethical was brought before student government this past year and has ignited discussions on campus and editorials in the Daily.
"Hashwi said that he will strive to be a true representative of the student body while making all decisions, and that he will also not be afraid to express his own opinions.
" 'I believe the university must not invest in socially irresponsible and immoral companies and if the students agree with this logic, then that is what I am committed to advocating for.' "
Wonderful letter from a University of Michigan student here:
link to michigandaily.com
It's on full view in today's 'Michigan Daily', serving 40,000 students.
It clearly condemns the "racist and illegal Israeli occupation, segregation and discrimination against Palestinians."
University of Michigan students are moving to the forefront of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
For those without speakers on their computer-- this video has no news in it.
Marc Ellis basically tries to reveal what he can while honoring the confidentiality rules of Baylor. So he can't really say anything.
We knew he was being railroaded because he's for the liberation of Palestine. This video basically reinforces that conclusion. But there's no real news in it.
Seeing Marc Ellis silenced is not a pretty thing. Getting beaten down by those who hold power over you isn't conducive to good activism. You basically surround yourself with lawyers, narrow your scope of vision, and put duct tape on your mouth.
Seeing Joseph Massad hunted for years was most unpretty. He survived. But he's not all over The Nation magazine, all over the New York Review of Books, like Edward Said was. He seems tucked away, out of the public view. Too bad.
Seeing Finkelstein go through the same kind of administrative lynching was also not pretty. And he didn't emerge from it as a better activist. He got narrower. Now he's ridiculing BDS.
Try to keep your voice raised for Palestine, for BDS, out in public. Don't get strangled in administrative hell.
University of Michigan students have today declared that "MichiganBDS invites all students to join us in demanding the University not serve as an accomplice to apartheid in Israel."
See their wonderful viewpoint published in the Michigan Daily today.
It's entitled "Boycott, Divest and Sanctions"
It's on the Web at: ily.com/opinlink to michigandaily.com
Go BDS!
To Terryscott:
Finkelstein deserves credit for the books and other work he's done. He also deserves blame for trying to shoot down the only chance for mass actions in the United States against Israel-- that movement bears the timid name of "BDS".
When you hear someone say "BDS", they are marking themselves as fearful to just say "Boycott Israel". The acronym of "BDS" means nothing to the general public so it's like a camouflage for frightened activists.
BDS was the same movement (but much more self-assured) in 1967, '77, and '87 against Apartheid South Africa. It felt free to bluntly say "Boycott South Africa". Nice and clear.
BDS against Israel is much more timid and frail, because there is so little public defiance against the Israeli state. No one feels safe expressing that defiance -- except (thank goodness) last night at the Park Slope Co-op.
Too bad Finkelstein can't give these fearful BDS-ers some courage. Instead he attacks them for any kind of boycott action against Israel. What does he want them to do? Read his blog and weep quietly for Palestine?
Boycott Israel and scold Finkelstein.
Finkelstein actually threw his weight against BDS at the Co-op meeting last night:
See link to gothamist.com
" 'What is BDS?' asked one member, Norman Finkelstein, last night. 'I'm not going to be in a cult again.' (BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, an international movement against Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.) Finklestein and others would learn a lot about BDS during the three hour meeting..."
This frail BDS movement, carefully nurtured, has to withstand a lot of enemies, now including Finkelstein. What a shameful place in history awaits him. He contributed some fine books to the movement. Now he's doing his best to shoot it dead.
Great!
The same kind of BDS campaign should be on every campus!
Listen, I'm thrilled to see any public demand for sanctions against "Israel".
But I also feel an undertone to these ads that Palestinian life is worth saving IF AN ISRAELI SAYS SO TOO.
I don't detect any defiance against Israel in these ads. Just a kind of cooperative spirit of good will that is suited to a terrain of equally empowered fellow activists.
Palestine is under such a gigantic power imbalance, and that imbalance so drastically empowers the settlers, that I feel the tone of these ads is too sweet and untrue.
Tonight, March 20, 2012, two speakers asked the University of Michigan's Central Student Government (CSG) for a resolution demanding the immediate release of Hana Shalabi.
The CSG took no vote on the matter.
According to the national racist religion we call Americanism-- only American soldiers' lives really matter. Also pretty much any white American.
The concept that Palestinian life has any value at all? That's nowhere on the U.S. political spectrum. I propose putting it on the spectrum by demanding boycott resolutions against Israel.
It's a bit rich for "hophmi" to have such a good belly-laugh about the lack of Palestinians in the United States leading the BDS campaign. The Zionists have terrified them. The U.S. government has terrified them. Do you expect to see Palestinians marching through the U.S. campuses after such unremitting terror against them, their families back home, deportations, arrests, drone attacks, etc.?
It's a bit unfair to break the bird's wing and then laugh at it because it can't fly.
The sooner Palestinians are able to organize mass marches for boycott of Israel, the sooner "hophmi" will eat his words. He will wish for the good old days of 2012, the good old feeble BDS movement of today.
More than you ever wanted to know about the intimate South Africa - Israel alliance during the apartheid years--
link to tinyurl.com
--complete with evidence of the top Apartheid South African leadership practically hugged up with the top Israeli leadership.
Correction: It has been 64 years of military occupation, from 1948 to 2012.
Hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed in that 1948 destruction of Palestine.
If you are only against the "44 years of occupation", then you keep Israel-proper intact, with its hundreds of atomic bombs and thousands of tanks.
You already know that Israel will keep re-invading and terrifying Palestinians until it is abolished. Don't you?
I found the SNCC newsletter (June-July 1967) which condemns Zionist terror gangs, and demands freedom for Palestinians.
It's here (page 1):
link to tinyurl.com
--click on it to enlarge it.
And here (page 2):
link to tinyurl.com
More proof that the Black liberation movement brought Palestine solidarity to the United States!
Thanks, Austin.
When Stokely was with SNCC, it published a huge 2-page article for Palestinian rights in its 1967 newsletter. This was an incredibly important development that put Palestine solidarity on the map in U.S. politics.
36 years later, the Wayne State University Student Council voted for total divestment against Israel:
link to tinyurl.com
That paved the way for other student governments to do the same. But they are all waiting for permission from liberal Zionists.
At least in Canada, one campus didn't wait:
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel have been approved by the University of Regina Student Union:
link to dearbornboycottsisrael.blogspot.com
Thanks again, Austin, for the most encouraging article I've seen in a while. Wonderful graphic, too.
Gilad G's comments reflect the Zionists' imperative to always have a wartime situation.
Every single Palestine human rights event is converted into a police emergency, a wartime event, when the Zionists are able to accomplish that. This enables Zionists to commit quite a lot of injury against the Palestinians' side, and it absolves the Zionist side of blame-- because it was "war".
Thanks, Walid. What could be more clear?
The Zionists are naturally hostile to any public boycott or divestment action.
But anti-Zionists can get pretty hostile about it too.
They fear being associated with anyone who says the State of Israel must be boycotted out of existence (as happened with Apartheid South Africa.)
They want a more reconciliable approach. They want to look reasonable. Yeah-- but what is "reasonable" on the American political spectrum?!
They want to look reasonable to American Democrats. They want to look reasonable to Ron Paul Republicans. They want to look reasonable to the so-called Israeli peace movement.
So they really can't say BOYCOTT ISRAEL. They have to say boycott Sabra hummus-- but they fear to even do that. You see a meek murmur for boycotting Sabra hummus at DePaul, and then you see the murmur disappear.
At best, you see a selective divestment campaign at Berkeley, which inspired so many in 2010-- but as soon as they were vetoed by the student body President, they disappeared! The whole divestment movement vanished overnight and never returned to Berkeley. Poof!
And that was the high point of 2001-2012 BDS activism on American campuses.
So again, enjoy the Sabeel conference, but ask them if there will ever be any campus campaign for boycott or even divestment against Israel.
It's true that the Sabeel conference will be great for brand-new Palestine activists. Ditto for the great Penn BDS conference that just finished (and resulted in zero BDS campaigns on any campus, not even one at Penn.) Also great.
I loved the first and second National Divestment Conferences, both held in 2002. Boy was I ready for divestment action! It didn't happen, though.
After 10 years, and many many conferences, there is still not one loud sustained campaign to demand boycott or divestment against Israel. Not even on one campus. Not even at one city council in the United States.
So that is all I care about. Not conferences-- though they are great the first few times you go.
All these groups are brave and do workshops and work hard. Including Sabeel.
But they can't break into the mass media because they simply do not demand action against Israel in the United States -- like boycott resolutions, for example.
If I were more encouraging and nurturing about the galaxy of work done by Sabeel, Al Awda, etc., you'd feel better. But I no longer have it in me. Too many years have gone by, and no one is marching on any centers of American power to demand action against Israel.
Not on Congress for sure. Not on city councils. Not at student governments.
The rare person who does actually march on Congress and make noise against Israel consists of, basically, Rae Abileah, who was injured by Zionist jackals.
You can certainly do what Rae did at city councils and students governments without getting arrested-- they will even let you sign up and speak, and wave your boycott-Israel banner. I hope you'll consider doing that. Maybe someone will help you.
Annie,
In fact you are correct, when you say sarcastically that I have "blazed a trail like no other". No one will follow that trail -- the trail of demanding boycott resolutions at city councils and student councils, except on rare occasions in the U.S., like at Oxford, and in that Australian town council (Marrickville). It seems impossible, even to you.
So you could say my suggestion of yelling for boycott actually won't work: because no one will do it. They want safety (like in a Sabeel conference.) They want the comfort of like-minded people to reinforce them (like at Sabeel). They like to hear inspiring speeches (like at Sabeel.)
After the Sabeel conference is over, these people will not march for boycott or for any other action against Israel. If you actually did what I'm asking, no one would follow you either. But it will happen in the future. You could make it happen. (As you say, no one will follow me. I've grown too bitter, as you can tell.)
Jo Anne Robinson blazed the trail of the Montgomery bus boycott in the early 1950's. She was laughed at, even by her closest friends. She actually wrote to the Montgomery City Council threatening a bus boycott! Nobody joined her in that confrontational stance. In fact, she is forgotten.
A couple years later came Rosa Parks and also MLK, who was new to town and less fearful than his fellow preachers.
Now we know-- Jo Anne was right to be confrontational. Call it Gandhian if you like, but it was confrontational, demanding -- and in 1955-56, that bus boycott changed this country and the world.
So think about the value of peaceful, confrontational, loud boycott campaigns against Israel, that will reach the newspapers and change the world.
OK?
Annie:
Sabeel is great -- compared to nothing. Mondoweiss also.
Mondoweiss is the only place activists can go to get any sense of what the Palestine solidarity movement is doing.
For those readers who have never experienced either: please go and experience Sabeel and Mondoweiss too. You will find good, like-minded people. You will get valuable news that you can use. But will you use it to march for boycott? I hope so.
My disgust at witnessing so many years of inaction has made me pretty bitter about these banquet-hall activists. But they are much better than nothing. I can't point you to any better groups or blogs, because none exist. What a shame for all of us.
Shed your fear and demand boycott against Israel -- right in your student government meetings.
OK, Annie. I see you can't really believe it's possible to publicly demand boycott. Too bad for all of us.
Annie,
Yes, I personally do go to at city councils, to student governments, to big public events where the media show up, and I demand boycott against Israel as loudly as I can. I do this to try and change the atmosphere.
So far, the atmosphere is still one of blind terror on the part of every Arab American student, every Muslim student, and almost every member of the Palestine solidarity movement. They all fear being labeled as anti-Semites and terrorists, simply for making a demand for a humanitarian boycott against Israel. So they retreat into private movies, private speaker events, private conferences (at best), and private banquets.
Do I sound like I'm scolding these poor frightened activists? I guess I am. I do understand their fear, a little. Some caution makes sense. But not so many years of public silence; that is really unwarranted. That silence means death for Palestine.
Let me know where to email you, if you're willing to push for a boycott resolution yourself, in your own locality. I'll give you details. If you're not, well, you still do fine work on Mondoweiss-- it's needed. But we can't survive too long if activists are perpetually frozen in Sabeel-type private gatherings. They don't impact the public atmosphere while trapped in a private conference room. They only console each other.
Annie,
I sense in your question a feeling that the Zionists are so powerful that no place exists where you can demand boycott action against them-- hence, the private conferences (and blogs) to at least gripe about Zionists in relative peace.
I feel that every place where TV or newspaper reporters are -- that's where we should be, yelling for boycott resolutions against Israel.
The easy places are university student governments. There's a university newspaper reporter at those meetings. It worked at Wayne State University:
link to tinyurl.com
If they censor you 60% of the time, you will at least be heard the other 40% of the time. And you will change the public atmosphere. You really can show public defiance against "Israel" and get away with it.
You really can raise hell for boycott, at city councils, at student governments, at big public events where the media show up.
I have interacted with the Sabeel people, and with some of their speakers. They are very nice. Many are much braver than me. They face down Israeli tanks. They get arrested.
However, like the rest of the "movement", they simply cannot, will not, go anywhere in the U.S. to bluntly demand action against Israel (like boycott). That is simply incomprehensible to me. It has been going on for 10 years and more.
I am guessing they are sensitive to the feelings of their fellow activists, who would rather die than demand boycott. So to make everyone comfortable, they make nice speeches and allow everyone to simply go home.
OK, great. The same all-star cast. All of them great speakers, great people.
But damn it. After the same speeches, we all go home and sit on our fat butt.
We email each other weepy stories. Then, start over again next year.
When, at long last, are these people going to push for actual action against Israel-- like a big boycott resolution? There are thousands of campus governments. There are thousands of city councils, town councils, village councils.
Why is NO one at these places demanding even the mildest symbolic action against Israel?
Have fun at Sabeel, though. Bring Kleenex.
Arg!
Mooser, as you've probably noticed, these hours (and years) of sucking on the J-word leaves no time to just march on the New York City Council and demand a boycott-Israel resolution.
That would finally make BDS into something that exists in the real world, in the mass media.
Why can't you people simply demand action against Israel? Like boycott resolutions? Like divestment resolutions?
Why do you instead waste your time obsessing about Jews, Jews, Jews, Jews?
Start acting like a human rights movement and leave the ethnic crap behind.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has jumped to trumpet the news:
"Palestinian activists disavow Israeli musician Atzmon", at --
link to jta.org
"...The signatories include EI's founder, Ali Abunimah, who is an anti-Zionist, and Joseph Massad..."
The analogy to Boer history is perfect.
Yeah. The problem is a lack of activism. Web site or no Web site.
This site is the ONLY place you'll see news of Palestine solidarity activism. That's why it's irreplaceable for now.
However it should be replaced by a very active Arab-American student web site that goes 100% for total boycott against Israel, until the apartheid state is abolished. If only there were students out there who actually wanted to do that.
The talk about "The Lobby" and ethnic stuff is really not my cup of tea. It's navel-gazing.
We need activism instead. Boycott, boycott, and more boycott.
Correction:
I noticed that one of the Atzmon excommunication signers is Tom Pessah.
Tom actually did push for a Berkeley resolution to divest from SOME companies that supported the Israeli military.
Tom did that 2 years ago. Good for you, Tom.
But Tom, why the dead silence on divestment ever since? Why can't divestment be pushed today at Berkeley? Or at any other campus?
That is much more pressing than this inquisition against Gilad Atzmon.
Go Gilad -- keep showing defiance against "Israel" and against Zionism.
That's more than anyone at Berkeley is doing these days.
All of this sound and fury about a musician whose heart is on the side of Palestinian liberation, and who has a wicked sense of humor. I mean, he calls himself a "Proud self-hating Jew". Don't you guys recognize that it's a joke? It totally negates itself. Just let it go. Have a good laugh.
What I like about Gilad is his defiance in the face of racism. Zionism is the proudest expression of racism currently (no joke), and it has directly and indirectly killed millions.
So Gilad, be as defiant as you are against the racists. And try to get a boycott-Israel resolution proposed at your city council, too, OK? You are famous these days, with all of these hysterical condemnations of you flying about. You might as well use the fame and yell for boycott.
None of those people condemning you have bothered to march into any town council and demand a boycott resolution against Israel. Until they do, it can hardly be said that the BDS movement even exists. So they represent a movement that doesn't exist.
Good luck!
Thank you for posting this.
Hana's story needs maximum publicity to save her life. Yesterday, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) visited Hana and reported that her health had deteriorated significantly:
“The second doctor’s second examination on 12 March indicated an additional deterioration in Ms. Shalabi’s condition, shown mainly in advanced muscle atrophy and wasting, additional weight loss, a significant reduction in blood sugar, severe dizziness and severe muscle pain, especially in her chest and back.”
Note that your heart is a muscle too.
Until Israel is publicly boycotted and condemned, Palestinians will continue to be kidnapped by Israel; Palestinians will continue to be jailed and abused without any pretense of a charge or a trial, as was Hana al-Shalabi.
I always make the same boycott appeal to everyone. You would exhaust yourself trying to make special appeals to people who directly benefit from the Zionist state.
I hate categorizing people by ethnic group. I would love to see a boycott-Israel movement, plain and simple, with no ethnic crap surrounding it. It worked with South Africa.
OK! More majical thinking from Mondoweiss.
Zionists are supposedly giving up Zionism! Oh, come on. Power concedes nothing without a demand. With no movement for boycott against Israel, the Palestinians get nothing.
So they are left alone in their jail cells, trying to hunger strike until you can get the media to pay attention. Too bad, too bad, that there is no movement in the U.S. to demand any action against Israel, not even one lousy boycott resolution at one podunk campus.
At long last, what are you waiting for? The magic conversion of Zionists to anti-Zionism?
Thanks very much, Allison.
I hope Shalabi's story can be propelled into the mainstream U.S. media somehow.
That's how she will get free.
Boycott Israel and Free Hana Shalabi.
If the Zionists are going to treat you this way, for the most innocuous begging to attend an open event which you were INVITED to attend, then...
...Just go sign up to speak at the GWU student government, and then demand a total boycott of all Israeli products at GWU. Let them call the UPD . Let them try to declare the student government meetings are "by invitation only".
Even with the censorship, this site is very educational. Lots of fuel for the boycott-Israel movement to use, as it goes to campuses campaigning for boycott resolutions.
Just one problem:
No one is actually campaigning at campuses for boycott-Israel resolutions.
And that is the state of BDS.
Our problem is not the lack of Blankfort and Witty. Our problem is the lack of any real BDS action.
I hope these brave protesters will quickly stage an event for the new Palestinian woman hunger striker, Hana Yahya al-Shalabi!
The sooner that Shalabi gets some news coverage, the faster she will be freed.
She is exactly like Khader Adnan -- but is not 66 days into her hunger strike.
* Electronic Intifada has covered her story at link to electronicintifada.net
*AntiWar.com has covered it at:
link to news.antiwar.com
Annie, please trumpet her story everywhere you can!
Thanks.
An unbelievable victory -- no thanks to the truly dead BDS "movement", which is demanding no boycotts at all, on any campus in the world.
Imagine if there were actual BDS resolutions hotly debated at university student governments all over North America. Then all of Palestine would be free, not just one incredibly brave and foolhardy man.
I hold the dead-and-dying BDS movement responsible for Khader Adnan's terrible suffering for the past 66 days of his hunger strike. Any real BDS movement would have loudly thrown itself all over the media demanding freedom for the 9 million Palestinians who are effectively in an Israeli jail.
Wonderful news for Palestine, and a well-deserved slap in the face for the armchair BDS crowd, who fear to even pronounce the words "Boycott Israel" in any public forum.
The Zionists will have carte blanche on the campuses. This is not due to any particular love for Israel on campuses. The campuses sincerely don't care who dies in the Middle East.
The so-called BDS "movement" will play dead. They will have some cute movies and speakers which no one will attend or even know about. Most importantly, they will never ever demand any resolution for boycott or divestment against Israel. They are fully aware that Israel plans to Auschwitzize Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
Israel will simply turn the Arab world plus Iran into cinders -- and the BDS movement will still be unable to demand B, D, or S. Even after the Penn BDS conference, not one BDS resolution is visible on any campus in the United States.
How do BDS-ers look at themselves in the mirror without spitting?
Phil, about that Penn BDS conference--
I wonder how Palestinians feel about no actual BDS resolutions being presented now at any university (or anywhere else) in North America.
I hope the Palestinians you meet can issue some kind of call to actually push for divestment resolutions, boycott resolutions, specifically against Israel!
Otherwise, what is BDS, anyway?
When the hell is some student going to say "Boycott Israel" at some campus in the United States, where you can be heard?
Why are you letting Khader fight this battle for you from his shackled starving death-bed?
There truly is no Palestine solidarity movement in the United States.
Movements demand things.
Where is this BDS "movement"?
Even at Penn, nobody is actually calling for any kind of BDS resolution.
Yes. "Israel" is the last officially, proudly colonial racist state on the planet, which has made the word "terrorist" equivalent to the word "Arab" in the minds of millions. This has made it so much easier for the United States to kill millions of Iraqis, for example.
Now they are salivating to obliterate Iran, a nation of almost 80 million people. And they so badly want to massacre Gaza and Lebanon again. "Apartheid" is too mild a word for what Israel is. Apartheid was too mild a word for the old South Africa, too.
Thanks, Robin! What a fine essay. I hope everyone learns about the intimate alliance between Apartheid South Africa and Israel in the 1970's and '80's. It speaks volumes about why Israel needs to be boycotted.
Malcolm's 1964 essay for Palestine, the one you quoted, was published in the Egyptian Gazette, and called "Zionist Logic". That year, Malcolm met with one of the young professionals who led the 1936 Palestine revolt, Dr. Shukairy. There's a photo of that meeting.
Surprisingly, Black radicals became fully aware of the cruelty and racism of the Zionists back in 1956, when Israel tried to destroy Nasser and Egypt. The Communist Party in New York was largely split between the whites who said Nasser was a fascist, and the Blacks who sympathized with Egypt's obviously anti-colonial struggle.
This knowledge informed Malcolm and some old remnants of the Garvey movement. At least one of the old Garvey people educated a new young leader of the Revolutionary Action Movement, which was a fantastic think tank for the entire decade of civil rights, Black Power, and Black Arts movements.
Then came the incredibly important issue of SNCC's newsletter, in 1967, that explained the whole bloody history of how Palestine was robbed. The next year, Stokely spoke up for Palestine at an Arab student conference in Ann Arbor. The Black Power movement brought Palestine to the campuses in that period, from 1967 to 1971. Some anti-war and anti-apartheid groups picked up the idea of Palestine solidarity from that point onward.
Boycott Israel and end the last apartheid state on Earth.
Fantastic. I hope to God that this translates into strong resolutions to boycott all Israeli products, on some actual campuses.
Too much honest sweat went into this conference for it to be totally over until next year.
BDS means that somebody demands BDS!
Matthew:
I am sick to death of this talk about how omnipotent Zionists are, and how powerless we are.
I am not at all concerned about winning resolutions to boycott "Israel". All I want is for boycott-Israel resolutions to be proposed at student governments. Why? Because that's where the student newspaper reporters are sitting, week after week! I have been doing that myself, week after week, year after year, and the sizeable Arab student population here is terrified to follow that example. Everyone is terrified (like you are) to just. do. it.
I repeat: All I want is a big stink about boycotting Israel in a few big campus newspapers, week after week, month after month.
That's all. you. need.
Don't waste years "strategizing", then graduating .
The whole idea is to break the atmosphere of silence and fear on the campuses, to change it into one of defiance.
Got it?
An intact Israeli state (large or small) with 300 atom bombs, with the best air force on Earth, with racist violence in every fiber of its history -- would not be a nice neighbor. Not even for one week.
Hophmi is thrilled that BDS is currently going nowhere. I am not.
All you need is 5 active students, on one university campus, marching into their student government and demanding total boycott against Israel. That would turn the whole atmosphere around.
Until that day, you'll have to watch Hophmi laugh his ass off and call you a loser.
Yes, it's true that "BDS on a few selected Israeli companies ain’t gonna amount to squat"-- but even that would be better than the dead silence we see on the campuses.
Any loud, public, visible BDS campaign would be a breath of fresh air.
Susan's talk was great.
Even after that... not one single resolution to boycott Israel has been openly pushed on any U.S. campus.
Not even one resolution to divest from Israel.
Susan's talk was great. Ali's talk was great. But the great mass of BDS supporters cannot be found actually pushing for BDS resolutions on any campus. They are hiding, terrified, in private emails to each other, private meetings, private exchanges of YouTube sacraments.
I have been to BDS conferences for ten years, and have seen no sustained BDS campaigns on any U.S. campus since Berkeley, almost 2 years ago.
BDS is dead. Its supporters are still alive biologically, but in the public forum they are dead, buried, nowhere to be seen.
There were speeches at the University of Michigan Central Student Government (CSG) last night, Feb. 14, 2012, detailing Khader Adnan's condition and imploring the CSG to issue a resolution urging the boycott of all products from Israel.
You can be sure that not one student will ever demand such a resolution at the University of Michigan. U-M has one of the strongest "BDS movements" in the United States, and it consists solely of their own meetings where the acronym "BDS" is occasionally spoken of favorably by an audience member or a guest speaker.
That is the apex of the BDS "movement" in the United States. Not one student on this continent is visibly demanding any resolution for divestment or boycott against Israel. If a thousand Khader Adnans went on hunger strike tomorrow, you would still see no divestment resolutions promoted on any American campus.
Let us not pretend that a single student cares to change that situation-- even if 9 million Palestinians went on hunger strike tomorrow and slowly died on YouTube.
That is the bitter truth of BDS "activism" today.
Norman can say anything he likes.
The fact is that there is not one single campus group actually pushing one single divestment or boycott resolution in any audible or visible way -- on any campus in North America.
This tells you all you need to know about how much Palestinian life is valued on U.S. campuses.
Too bad. Get ready for the final genocide against Palestine-- with your bags of popcorn and boxes of Kleenex. That is all the "BDS" movement is good for-- a nice cry at a conference, then another year of dead silence.
It actually is possible to push for a strong divestment resolution against Israel.
Who will be the first student group to do it?
There is no visible demand to boycott Israel on any U.S. campus.
The Champaign-Urbana campus really did have a divestment rally around November 2001. Since then-- nothing.
Unless you march into your student government and demand a boycott-Israel resolution-- there will be none.
Nothing wrong with banning Jeff, Phil, and everyone else over 30.
This site should be by and for thousands of campus Boycott-Israel activists, to organize marches for boycott nationally and campus-by-campus.
However, since there IS no visible movement to boycott Israel, bring back Jeff, Phil, and everyone else who wants to grouse about The Lobby's Omnipotence.
Better these old grousing contributors than none at all.
So when will the divestment resolution be introduced at the Penn student government?
Bill is right. My ugly attitude towards my only "allies" is not going to encourage them to go demand boycott against Israel. A good organizer is supportive and encouraging of every baby step the BDS movement might take -- even if it's just another speech from Ali, Allison, Anna, or Ilan.
However, I've seen 10 years of INCREASING timidity on the part of the BDS crowd, which is still totally cowed. The only thing you have is your loud sense of outrage against Israel, your loud public demands for action.
In all these years, the only loud demand for action that I have heard is from BDS types telling me to shut up so they can dialogue some more, and enjoy their private speaker events, private film showings, etc.
So I think BDS is really dead and buried. These conferences are noble attempts to jump-start the membership, but the membership is terrified and silent. Now and forever.
Penn BDS has worked hard to make it clear that they do not want to offend the Zionsts. They want to dialogue with them. They are not even pushing for a divestment resolution at Penn itself.
There have been a long line of divestment conferences since 2002, but why should they alarm Israel? These conferences feature the same good speeches, and the same good speakers. They feature tasty workshops and dialogue— and a couple hundred attendees who are too terrified to ever demand divestment on their campuses.
They could change the campuses, and the world. But they are paralyzed and silent.
I have seen no sign that this conference will be any different. No one in this conference will demand a strong divestment resolution at Penn or anywhere else.
So sit back and enjoy your dialogue. I know you have 10 or 20 more years of dialogue ahead of you. That should give Israel enough time to bomb Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran…. until Israel has exhausted its air force and run out of bombs.
Enjoy your dialogue. And enjoy this blog! Lots of tasty talk, never an actual resolution to boycott Israel. Enjoy.
The problem with this site is not silly comments. I skip them. The problem is the whole Palestine solidarity movement. For almost ten years, it's been almost devoid of Arab students, who can really push the movement to victory.
The movement is too old, too full of crusty white couch potatoes who think A LOT about Jews. This site reflects that overly large part of the movement, and also the small Arab student part of the movement.
Better to encourage the students to grow. Join them on their campuses to demand boycott resolutions against Israel. Until you do, simply policing this site will only gag the timid, old, weak voices who comprise the movement up to now. Those voices are better than nothing. Let them talk.
Anyone who denies the European Holocaust or the current Holocaust against Arabs is an idiot. Yet empowering yourself to ban them seems ill-advised. Banning can become a bad habit.
I am too accustomed to being banned from virtually every discussion simply for demanding boycott against Israel. Even demanding boycott supposedly "leads to" anti-Semitism, according to those who have banned it from discussion. This "leads to" argument is a slippery slope.
Yes, the "Transfer Agreement" (well documented in the book by Edwin Black) -- which saved the Nazis from being boycotted-- did not cause the Nazi rise to power. You're right about that.
But that agreement saved the Nazis from being overthrown. It saved them, and screwed the world. Furthermore, study of the "Transfer Agreement" does shed light on what Zionists were then, and still are now: ready to sacrifice millions of lives to have a Zionist state. Do you really want to protect Zionists from that very well-documented truth?
I guess if you want a site where commenters are very, very careful, you need rules. And you need enforcers. Too bad for a lot of us.
To "Cloak":
Yes, I am deliberately missing Mondoweiss's bigger picture. That picture is of "AIPAC" and "neo-cons" who are so powerful that boycott has no chance, and all we can do is whine.
To hell with the whining. Demand boycott. Demand divestment. Don't just cry in a corner because the Zionists are supposedly omnipotent.
That is my one-issue, as you call it.
The obstacle is not the Zionist lobby.
The obstacle is your own terror of actually marching into some public body and demanding a "Boycott Israel" resolution.
That terror dominates every campus, every city hall, and the gasbags on this blog can break that terror themselves: just go demand boycott where the newspaper reporters are sitting, at your student government or your city hall, or your legislature.
But your own blog is so busy hyperventilating about "The Lobby" that you're scared of it, too!
You're too scared to open your mouth in one little student government meeting. Try it. Please.
To Phil: Who is speaking of violence? Certainly not me!
All I want is for 5 people with cardboard "Boycott Israel" signs to march into their student government. I can't even get that.
Thanks, yours truly. I'm still hoping for some actual action coming out of the Penn BDS conference, not simply a private talk shop followed by more strategies of silence.
Donald has done me a service by making me think. Not that I agree with his call for censorship or for civility. I don't. Civility is nice, but it's not the top priority for a choking, starving victim of Zionism. ("Excuse me, soldier, but would you kindly take your boot off my child's neck? He appears to be cyanotic.")
No, he's made me think, why is it so impossible to publicly act against Israel, like with boycotts, when Israel is so obviously massacring Arabs proudly and easily? Is it because the U.S. has always loved and respected Jews? Ha! That's a good one.
Nor have anti-Semites ever been challenged by any kind of Jewish civil rights movement. (Note: Israel is not a civil rights movement. It is a Nazi state, whose racism and firepower are always out in the open.)
So the rabid racists and anti-Semites kept all their economic, political, and financial power. They only adjusted their public language. Now they hate Muslims, and no one seriously contradicts them. Zionists are fully allied with them.
The bedrock foundation of U.S. history has always been this:
1. Identify the sacred whites, who must be defended and enriched with all the firepower of the state,
2. Identify the "unworthy" Blacks, who must be robbed, punished, and lynched for their sins. That includes Indians and Mexicans. How do you think the U.S. consumed Texas and California like a juicy steak?
So Israel and its victims have been fitted into the bedrock DNA of All-Americanism, like this:
1. Israel and its supporters have been welcomed into full membership in the sacred white race, and have been enriched beyond their wildest dreams. No matter how many millions of Muslims they kill, they cannot, by definition, ever be called "terrorists". In fact, if you ever demand any action against Israel, you will get called the worst names imaginable, as if you are the criminal.
2. Arabs, and now Muslims, suddenly have no rights which any white man is bound to respect. They are now being bombed and assassinated worldwide, starved and impoverished. Leading Republicans can keep declaring them to be "invented people", nonexistent people, and the Democrats can keep shooting them dead, all over the world. No matter how innocent Muslims are, they are perpetually called "terrorists", and perpetually paralyzed when they should be demanding justice. I can't begin to express how terrified Arabs are to be in the same room with anyone who publicly condemns Israel.
That is because now White = Israel, and Black = Arab, and lynching is once again the national pastime.
The problem is the lack of loud, public action against Israel-- the lack of any boycott-
Israel campaign anywhere.
I promise you that even after the Penn BDS conference, there will still be no boycott-Israel campaign anywhere in the United States.
The root problem is a paralytic fear of the Zionists. If you want to tone down criticism of Zionism, you are only muting an already-muted political landscape.
I have never in my life seen any physical mistreatment against Jews, or any public penalization against Jews, in the United States. Or anywhere else on Earth. It happens, but it's rare. It is already universally acknowledged to be wrong, don't worry.
Yet every kind of mistreatment is visited upon Palestinians every minute of every day, on their own land -- and no one on this Earth will stop it from happening. It is universally acknowledged to be unstoppable, and if you try to stop it, you are ejected to the political wilderness in the United States-- if you are outside the U.S., you are either arrested or hit with Israeli missiles.
So I say Boycott Israel, delegitimize Israel, cut off every penny to Israel, and save your tender concern for those who need it most-- 9 million Palestinians, 300 million Arabs, 1.6 billion Muslims, who are facing genocide.
Adam has performed a valuable service.
All of these candidates are racist killers, and they don't mind saying so in public!
Just push for boycott of Israel, and don't waste our time humping for Paul or for any of the rest.
Let us assume Wimnnica is right-- that Israel is so damn popular that BDS will have no effect. Let's assume that Palestinian life is worth nothing to anyone anyway.
Now recall 1960. No one on Earth was willing and able to defend Black life in Mississippi or in Sharpeville or the Congo. Black people could be annihilated with zero consequences, and both the U.S. and South Africa were White Teflon regimes with great, uh, popularity.
After the Black Power movement was finished, and BDS, the Apartheid regimes in South Africa and the American South were dead and buried forever.
Once you see five simultaneous campuses marching to boycott Israel -- the Israeli State will be flushed down the Apartheid toilet to join its old (dead) buddies like Vorster and Botha.
Start the clock now. Who will be the first to march for boycotting "Israel"?
No, Winnica is right. BDS will not do any bad harm to Israel's finances.
So why bother?
Because BDS also never did any bad harm to South Africa's finances in the 1970's and 1980's.
Yet BDS killed Apartheid South Africa politically. It empowered Black people and their friends to strike a blow at the Apartheid State, and to encourage governments to do likewise, until South Africa stank like a pig in all international forums.
That is the value of BDS.
This is wonderful news. I hope that some campus is already pushing their student government for a divestment resolution to brag about at the conference. Any divestment resolution is a victory if it's spread all over the campus media-- regardless of the vote count.
This one actually won, at Wayne State University:
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
Try one like it!
-------------------------------
You can vote for whoever you like.
However, absorbing your brain (and mine) with a candidate who has never fought for Palestine, with the wish that he will... is a waste of the next 4 years.
We saw that with Obama. The big wish that he was secretly pro-Palestine. I'll bet he is. Yet he has spent 3 years murdering Palestinians with massive support to Israel. He has spent 3 years murdering Muslims directly, in numerous countries.
So with Paul. Get absorbed with Paul today (and then with Obama a few months later), and there are no voices demanding action against Israel. Not yours, and not Paul's, and not Obama's.
The "cause of Palestine" requires one thing only. It requires that you push for Palestine, for the total boycott and isolation of Israel.
Ron Paul stands for none of that. Plus, have you read the racist poison in Paul's newsletters?
Please do not believe that Palestine wants to win its freedom by putting the Klan on the throne in Washington, or that a racist could ever want to help Palestine anyway.
I am not a pimp for Paul, and that is why.
OK! So we won't campaign for the boycott of Israel? We campaign instead for a guy who would never ever condemn Israel, never demand any punitive action against Israel at all? And a guy who is indistinguishable from the Klan in his newsletter writings on Black people?
Unthinkable. I have no doubt that by the summer, you will be campaigning for Obama, with similar magical thinking.
Better to push for boycott of Israel-- and stand for it openly.
Ron Paul is your savior? Another Racist Republican killer, who praised the Israeli bombing of Iraq thirty years ago? Who sent out tons of openly anti-Black newsletters? Who supported that genocidal war on Afghanistan? Who's even homophobic on top of everything else?
What next? Dig Eisenhower out of his grave and run him for President, too?
Your savior is yourself. You can't avoid going to the campuses and raising hell until the students are marching to boycott Israel.
You can't avoid openly campaigning to boycott and cut off Israel from every dime it gets, and every iota of legitimacy it sucks out of your silence.
Yell. Dispel that silence and insist on boycott of Israel.
It beats the hell out of sucking your thumb and imagining that some racist dog like Ron Paul is going to save you.
Listen, I'm all for creative events like this Chicago balloon celebration. Very nice.
But would it kill you to march into Chicago City Council and ask for a resolution to boycott all products from Israel?
Look at this demonstration held recently by Occupy Chicago -- link to theblaze.com
Look at these "progressive caucus" aldermen in City Council who should at least pretend to help you -- link to progressillinois.com
Chicago obviously has a few hundred people who care about Palestine.
Let them consider a campaign to actually boycott Israel. They can carry balloons if they want to.
Broncos,
I think you have expressed a kind of magical thinking which is common on Mondoweiss. You think a silent feeling against Israel will somehow burst into public expression? No. Never.
You get nothing by silent wishing.
When you publicly demand action against Israel, then you will get some. Not before.
I hope Phil will not chime in again with another imagined seismic shift against Israel. Like, "This is big. This is really big." (Followed by some loyally critical remark against Israel by one of its backers.)
John,
You break the shackles the same way the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement did, in the 1960's.
You demand simple justice, which seems impossible and unspeakable at the time. But when you say the words in public, they become possible: "Boycott Israel", and "Cut all Ties to Israel".
The alternative of waiting for Debbie Wasserman Schultz to go all-out for Palestine is really a delusion. So is waiting for Ron Paul to fight for Palestine. I promise you that he won't.
A hundred students marching to boycott Israel would accomplish a total change in the atmosphere on campuses, and in U.S. political life. That should be easy to understand.
Phil,
Anyone who relies on some imaginary pro-Palestine wing of the Democrats is removed from the last half-century of history. Worse, if you believe in that, you won't be demanding boycott or anything else against Israel.
You'll just read the tea leaves and wait for the Democrats to save Palestine.
Of course, that's what the entire "movement" did in 2008. They got success beyond their wildest dreams-- Obama, who once sat at the same table with Edward Said.
So today we have Obama, feeding Israel more advanced weaponry and bunker-busters than it can possibly use, swearing eternal loyalty to Israel, etc.
Get ready for the 2012 Obama campaign. For the next year, the "movement" will swoon for Obama again, instead of demanding boycott.
That's how Palestine will die. A permanently paralyzed "movement", demanding no action, ever, against Israel, and praying for some Democrat savior.
The criticisms of the Penn BDS conference are essentially this:
Because Saudi Arabia/Phil Weiss/Abu Mazen is bad -- Palestine will just have to die.
Well, I say boycott Israel anyway, before Palestine dies, not after.
I say follow the example of Wayne State University's Student Council:
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
Thank goodness BDS is here.
The only thing missing is to march into your student government... demanding a Boycott-Israel resolution now.
That would really energize the PennBDS conference!
A total divestment resolution was actually approved by the Wayne State University Student Council in 2003 --
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
Still waiting for an actual effort to boycott Israel, at any campus. I don't mean tip-toeing around a hummus boycott, either.
I mean, a plain call to boycott everything from Israel. Just like South Africa was boycotted.
BDS has become a code word. It now means that we privately sympathize with Palestinians, but we will NEVER publicly demand boycott against Israel. Too scary.
Until campuses are full of boycott-Israel marches, "BDS" will continue to mean self-congratulatory emails containing the phrase "BDS", and public avoidance of ever calling for real BDS.
Finkelstein also took some heat in Dearborn this year:
link to arabamericannews.com
Again, he seemed to be pressuring Palestinians to take the only "realistic" deal: two states, and Israel keeps all its atom bombs and its powers to re-invade at will.
Yes, that is the only realistic deal unless there is a boycott movement that shakes the campuses. As long as we sit and demand no action against Israel-- Finkelstein is right: Israel will last forever, and Palestine will be starved and shot out of existence.
So let us make a boycott movement and change that "reality".
What is the purpose of all this whining?
I hope your purpose is to swamp the campuses with a movement to boycott Israel.
Of course, there is no movement to boycott Israel, except in whispered cafe conversations, or in private "BDS" workshops.
So again, what is the purpose of all this whining?
It would be nice to see some audible call for the boycott of Israel now, before that too is outlawed.
In a major U.S. university's student government, it's now officially forbidden to compare the Israeli army to the Ku Klux Klan:
link to arabamericannews.com
(The article is entitled "Michigan Student Association accused of stifling speech on Israel-Palestine")
A really fine comic. Especially the 85-year-old student activist who's been trapped for eons in the "dialogue" trap.
Now all we need is the actual feet of students marching into their student governments-- and demanding the university-wide boycott of all products from Israel.
That will mean liberation.
At the University of Michigan, unbelievable repression of the "Boycott Israel" campaign has occurred. You can comment on it here, if you wish to:
link to michigandaily.com
For example, the University student government recently outlawed any comparison of the Israeli army with the Ku Klux Klan:
link to arabamericannews.com
Phil,
AIPAC clones are not the roadblock to starting a big loud movement to boycott Israel.
Here's the roadblock: Dread, unreasoning fear of Zionists (not just of AIPAC). Don't feed that fear.
Not one group on any campus is ready to demand boycott against Israel.
Not even 3 people on any campus are ready to demand any action against Israel.
Just make a sustained push for a Boycott-Israel resolution, at your campus government, or at your city council. That will earn publicity and would start the ball rolling.
Try to remember: there are so few hard-core Zionists, they can't do more than whimper, against a room full of human rights activists. Just don't hand the Zionists a veto over your own mouth. Ignore them and forge ahead.
That's how the Wayne State University students approved a resolution for total divestment against Israel:
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
So get out of bed, stop crying about AIPAC and go demand a boycott resolution against Israel, at any forum you like.
If Mustafa's death doesn't spark a nationwide campus movement for total boycott of Israel -- then why are we just whimpering to ourselves about each atrocity?
Boycott Israel - link to heritage.com
You know that Israeli is a Ku Klux Klan state -
link to michigandaily.com
What are you waiting for? Boycott "Israel", loudly.
Congratulations, Annie.
Here's a Boycott-Israel story with quite a lot of coverage in the media already. See the latest from 'Arab American News', December 3, 2011 --
link to arabamericannews.com
It's unusual to see outrage expressed against Israeli atrocities, in any media outlet, but this story does allow that outrage to be expressed.
From that outrage, I hope a boycott movement will grow a bit faster.
The sooner we see a Boycott-Israel movement, the sooner we can stop this trend:
link to dearbornboycottsisrael.blogspot.com
Thanks for the observations from UC Davis.
The "Boycott Israel" judge's biography is here:
link to mied.uscourts.gov
His bio boasts of him being in the leadership of groups including ADL.
This reminds me of the "Boycott Israel" bus advertisement that was just refused by Ann Arbor, Michigan's bus authority:
link to dearbornboycottsisrael.blogspot.com
The ad clearly demands a boycott of Israel, period.
Yet it was refused with the excuse that it might "defame" a "group of persons".
Of course the ACLU is suing to get that ad on those buses.
I hope that Rafeef can inspire some U.S. campus group to push for a Boycott-Israel resolution in their student government.
Don't let our calls for boycott be censored:
link to annarbor.com
Thank you.
There is another effort to accuse Palestine human rights supporters of "terrorism".
It has just been reported that the Ann Arbor, Michigan bus authority is rejecting efforts to place "Boycott Israel" ads on their buses.
Now an Ann Arbor Human Rights Commissioner, Neal Elyakin, is accusing the ad's supporters of supporting "the terrorists in Israel who target civilian buses".
Commissioner Elyakin's comment is under the article entitled "AATA rejects anti-Israel bus ad", at link to annarbor.com
It is not known whether Ann Arbor's Mayor will ask for Elyakin's resignation.
Good account of Israeli Atrocity Number 36,557. Complete with the nonchalant Rolex glance by Barak.
I think we are now sufficiently informed to launch a nationwide campus boycott of all Israeli products:
link to youtube.com
How many Israeli atrocities does it require, to demand a simple boycott resolution against Israel at your student government?
Hi Allison and Alex:
Here's story that's gone neglected for too long.
The stunning victory of a total divestment resolution, against Israel, at an American university:
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
and
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
I hope you get a chance to do a piece on this excellent example for campuses today.
Great. I wonder what excuse the Daily will give for dropping a spectacular story about such an active University of Michigan graduate.
The Daily can't claim that Huwaida's arrest is not newsworthy. The Daily covered Huwaida's co-founding of the International Solidarity Movement ten years ago:
link to michigandaily.com
You can ask the "Michigan Daily" newspaper why they failed to cover the story of these arrests. Their chief editor's email is steinberg@michigandaily.com
The "Daily" serves 40,000 students at the University, from which Huwaida Arraf actually graduated!
Huwaida Arraf's arrest was described at last night's meeting of the University of Michigan student government ("Michigan Student Assembly"), 11/15/2011. All the details were announced, including the fact that she was arrested by "Israel" for trying to ride what amounts to a Whites-Only bus.
The Michigan Daily reporter and photographer were handed a full copy of the Mondoweiss story on the arrest of Huwaida and the other Freedom Riders.
At that meeting, the Daily was publicly challenged to report what happened to Huwaida, a 1998 graduate of the University of Michigan. The reporter said that she would "ask my editor".
The assembly was also reminded of how Apartheid South Africa and Apartheid Israel were closely allied.
A member of the Michigan Student Assembly got the whole assembly to vote to extend speaking time so that he get this point clarified: that in fact six Freedom Riders were arrested by Israel, simply for being on that Israeli bus and for being Palestinian.
Three speakers at the assembly, including a Professor of African American studies, spoke emphatically for boycott and disinvestment against Israel.
Finally, the assembly was told that "we will boycott Israel until the apartheid state is abolished and a Palestinian can walk unmolested from one end of Palestine to the other." This boycott campaign has been pushed continuously at the Michigan Student Assembly since 2008:
link to dearbornboycottsisrael.blogspot.com
Yet the Michigan Daily has refused to report on the boycott-Israel campaign from 2008 until today.
In today's Michigan Daily, not one word was printed about Huwaida's arrest, nor about the calls for boycott of Israel.
Here is the contact information for the Editor in Chief of the "Michigan Daily", as listed in the newspaper:
STEPHANIE STEINBERG
Editor in Chief
734-418-4115 ext. 1251
steinberg@michigandaily.com
Congratulations, Mazin, Huwaida, Fadi, Fajr, and every Freedom Rider, on getting so much publicity focused on Israeli Apartheid.
What a shame that Huwaida's old school newspaper in Michigan is refusing to print a word about it.
Great!
I hope this encourages campuses to demand immediate resolutions to boycott Israel:
link to youtube.com
Boycott the Apartheid State now!
A welcome sign that the Palestine Freedom Movement is shedding its meek, back-door mentality. Good!
Boycott Israel, Boycott Israel, Boycott the hell out of Israel!
link to youtube.com
Thank you.
Hope to see a march into the DePaul student government now-- demanding total boycott of Israel.
How many atrocities does Israel have to commit before we hear a demand for boycott?
Thanks, Anna,
I'm glad to read the call to "Hold a teach-in about boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS)"
I would like to know when Israeli atrocities have reached the tipping point...
...when some campus group will publicly demand a boycott of everything from Israel, including paper clips.
The Wayne State Student Council already passed a total divestment resolution against Israel in 2003:
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
Eight years have gone by. Who will be the next to try it?
Or are we "waiting until the time is right"?
A very easy way is to loudly demand a resolution to boycott all Israeli products at your university:
link to youtube.com
That will cause enough panic among the Zionists on campus. They will then increase the publicity your boycott campaign receives.
Mr. Witty expresses a sentiment I have heard in every forum imaginable:
1. "That unmentionable THING that is happening to Palestinians cannot be breathed in this forum at this time.
2. "Nor can we ever mention WHO is doing that THING to the Palestinians...that would be divisive!
3. "No other issues are divisive. Just the Palestine issue. Sorry!"
===================
Here is what I say to that: Never deny the ongoing Holocaust being committed against the Palestinians, and against the wider Arab and Muslim world...
...Or else your precious forum will be paralyzed, built on a shameful lie.
Then your forum will dissolve itself anyway, out of dread fear that Palestinians might somehow be mentioned as if they are human beings.
That is exactly how the anti-war movement dissolved around 2004.. from the dread fear that Palestine would be mentioned audibly.
That email from Will is the first sign that the OWS movement is dissolving itself, simply to smother any forum for the issue of Palestine.
I say boycott Israel anyway:
link to youtube.com
===================
Thanks, Annie!
For all student unions, here is what the Wayne State movement accomplished in 2003:
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
--the first university student government to vote for a resolution demanding total divestment against Apartheid Israel.
Videos of that Wayne State rally Nov. 1, 2011 --
link to arabamericannews.com
This returns Wayne State to its greatest days.
In 2003, the Wayne State Student Council approved the first university resolution for total divestment from Israel:
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
The resolution ended with two demands:
"THEREFORE IT IS RESOLVED, that we ask the Board to immediately divest (dis-invest) our university from Israel,
"THEREFORE IT IS FURTHER RESOLVED, that we ask the Board for a report this semester, on its progress in divesting the University from its investments in Israel, including divestment from all companies doing business in Israel, and divestment from all stocks and pension funds which include those companies."
Isn't it about time to boycott Israel?
link to youtube.com
What are the campuses waiting for? A permission slip?
Thanks Annie,
Here is Malcolm's 1964 article against the inexcusable racism that Zionism has always represented. It's reprinted on a fine Pan-African blog:
link to panafricannews.blogspot.com
----------------------
Here is the relevant quote from Malcolm's article:
"Did the Zionists have the legal or moral right to invade Arab Palestine, uproot its Arab citizens from their homes and seize all Arab property for themselves just based on the 'religious' claim that their forefathers lived there thousands of years ago? Only a thousand years ago the Moors lived in Spain. Would this give the Moors of today the legal and moral right to invade the Iberian Peninsula, drive out its Spanish citizens, and then set up a new Moroccan nation ... where Spain used to be, as the European zionists have done to our Arab brothers and sisters in Palestine?..."
Another video, up on YouTube:
link to youtube.com
This video shows the panic that the Boycott-Israel moving is causing. It also shows the extremely strong ties that Israel had with Apartheid South Africa.
Did you hear that?
The United Arab Emirates had been prepared to send two aircraft squadrons to Libya!!
So the U.S. & Israel & the United Arab Emirates are all foaming to deliver a good dose of "democracy", American-style, from F-15 fighter jets.
Doesn't that ring any alarm bells?
Asking the U.S. or Israel to bomb Arabs (for any so-called "democratic" purpose) is like asking cats to eat mice in order to save other mice.
At best, the U.S. is trying to establish its right to bomb Arabs at will. Now, there's no need to say "terrorism" is the excuse. Now you ca say "human rights" is the excuse.
If the U.S. cared about human rights, it would show the same harsh angry language (and no money!) to its kleptomaniac puppets (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, the Egyptian military) that it's always shown to Gaddafi.
I am starting to wonder when some Columbia students will actually walk into their student government and ask for a resolution to totally boycott all products from Israel.
Just asking, and getting that reported in the Daily Speactator, would be a huge boost to other students contemplating the same thing.
It's easier than you think. It even worked at Wayne State University-- a total divestment resolution was approved, April 17, 2003.
Tom,
Just asking for that divestment resolution was a huge confidence-builder for thousands of Palestinian students.
Just going to ASUC and demanding divestment -- that blew open the doors of the Daily Cal, and sparked a bunch of divestment campaigns.
That was a major victory.
You don't have to win the vote! It's still a huge victory against paralysis.
Can you try it again?